The morning reveals that bruises are easily covered. I think I am hiding the marks with thick scarves and brown stockings printed with polka dots and lonely animals. The truth is, I have the same marks as you, but it’s my pride I am protecting. My marks are deep scars from those that gave us embraces with razor blades. They were Judas in Gethsemane, well placed kisses but daggers meant to sink into the soul.

The day is December, biting with cold. The white turns the day absent and icy, we’re walking around with wounded glances and frozen glares. I am starting to see the broken pieces we are, like pottery smashed into bits. The potter made us masterpieces, but we jumped from the kiln, purposefully searching for freedom, only to find the ache of cement and the cracks it contains.

Honesty is riveting when you finally discover the power it has. I arrive at your home, that building of brick and empty. You let me in and we sit. The kitchen table is empty and the clock tick is my only reminder of flesh and being.

Far away words are exchanged and I decide it’s enough. Authenticity is a quality I’ve never had, but today I found that piece of me behind the potter’s chair. It was broken and smashed, but it fit right in my side, like a mold that was never supposed to be missing.

I stand and unwrap my scarf for you. Eyes wide and gasping, you glare at my wounded skin angrily. I have violated an unspoken rule of silence. Standing, you are ready to flee. I grab your covered hands, wrapped in mittens. I feel your broken fingers underneath and I slowly take your gloves off. Your hands are bloody and mangled and true. You have frozen in a fit of panic, your eyes show the fear of a hunted animal. I have revealed your weakness, I have uncovered your oozing wound. You await my rejection and disgust. Instead, I kneel next to you and kiss your new wounds, along with the scars that show proof of past hurt. Blood is on my hands now, blood is on my lips, but blood is truth and it is saving us.

Hope floods your eyes as our blood shows us as one in the same. Unconditionally loved we both are. Tears of salt stain our dark clothes and our broken beauty is shining through the muddy scarves and coats.

We walk, bloody hand in bloody hand, staining the white snow with our wounds as we walk. We smile at each lonely being we pass and their eyes speak fear, but also of relief and hope. Freedom has a price and requires the sacrifice of pride. We are wounded, and we are together in that. Yet as we walk, we fail to notice that the dripping of our blood is slowing. The holes are closing and the bruises fading and by the time we walk past the hill on Calvary Street, our skin is as white as snow.